Episode 1269: Best in the Business
Date September 13, 2018 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the unlikely championship season of the Northwest League’s Eugene Emeralds, Jacob deGrom’s latest hard-luck loss, and maintaining perspective about the Phillies’ late-season swoon, then answer listener emails about an MLB ballpark sleepover, whether making ballparks bigger would counter the three true outcomes, Chris Davis’s strikeouts vs. batting average and the worst seasons of all time, Javier Baez and “creating chaos,” the value and cost of good and bad third-base coaches, and clutchness, Dansby Swanson, and Giancarlo Stanton, plus a Stat Blast about the odd batted-ball effects of Citi Field and a last-minute Willians Astudillo update. Topics * Staying overnight in a ballpark * Creating a ballpark to reduce the three true outcomes * High strikeout low batting average seasons * Citi Field offense supression * Javier Baez's ability to induce errors * Value of third base coaches * How long before you believe a player is clutch? * Episode 1268 follow-up: glove laces * Recent Willians Astudillo videos Intro Willians Astudillo broadcast clip Lord Huron, "Emerald Star" Outro Rakim, "Flow Forever" Banter * The Eugene Emeralds won the Northwest League championship on a walk-off balk. * Jacob DeGrom's continued strong performance. He had his 26th straight start allowing 3 ER or fewer and has more WAR (8.7) than pitcher wins (8). * Philadelphia Phillies' season and closing series against the Atlanta Braves Email Questions * Jacob: "I have a question regarding ballparks around MLB. Do you think you could hide in a stadium after a game overnight? If so, where would you hide and how would you do it? What ballparks would be the best/worst place to get it done? I feel like Wrigley would be the worst. I'm curious to hear your answers." * Michelle: "I recently read this article about a way to counter the TTO rise in baseball. They suggested that making the ballparks larger would counter much of this rise. Let's bring back our dear pal, the eccentric billionaire. He or she is really worked up about baseball, reads this article, and decides to single-handedly fund the expansion of the playing fields for all 30 teams. What would this new brand of baseball look like? Would it really decrease strikeout and walk rates? (Clearly, home run rates would go down)." * Mike: "A question hit me tonight looking at the MLB leader boards. Oriole Chris Davis is currently hitting an abysmal .173 with 168 Ks (heading into play Saturday). Has anyone with at least 100-150 ABs ever had more Ks than their batting average? In 1991, Rob Deer hit .179 with 175 Ks. Could Crush be having a historic season?" * Joe: "In today’s broadcast, Len Kasper said that Javy Baez “creates chaos” in a play where the ball was overthrown to third as he was trying to take an extra base and he subsequently scored on the error. Len and JD often say that Javy forces defenses to make mistakes when he’s on the bases and it’s a commonly held belief among Cubs fans, myself included. My first question is: Is this true? How much can a Javy’s aggressiveness really cause opposing players to make errors vs them just randomly happening to make more errors when he’s on the bases? Secondly, if it’s true, has anyone tried to measure it? Is there a “forced error” stat? How would someone tell the difference between a forced and unforced error? How much value could this conceivable add? I believe in it, I just don’t really know how you’d go about quantifying it." * Hunter: "The Rockies announcers just said Stu Cole is the best in the business when it comes to holding or sending runners as a 3rd base coach. While I’m sure they don’t have any way to back this up, Could the data show this to possibly be true? How much value does a great 3rd base coach add? What’s the maximum value a 3rd base coach could add? Also, for fun, if a 3rd base coach was terrible. How much would that hurt the team? Obviously players wouldn’t always listen, but i could see a terrible 3rd base coach taking wins away." * Ryan: "I have a question regarding your opinions on clutchness. Before I ask the question, allow me to explain my understanding of the theory of clutchness. From what I understand, clutch (that is, performing well in high leverage situations), is something that a player can be over the course of a game, or season, or even potentially multiple seasons, but that clutchness is not a skill that players can have and maintain over the course of an entire career; that is, if a player has a long streak of clutch performance, it is more of a long string of luck than it is a skill attributable to the player. Assuming that this explanation is generally correct, how long would a player have to maintain one of these clutch streaks for you to question this theory and be willing to say that a player simply has the clutch gene. Is it 2 seasons? Or 5? Or would it have to be a full 20-year career? Or maybe never? The reason I ask is that, as a Braves fan, Dansby Swanson has been a very divisive player among our fanbase. Not even getting into the fact that his defense is good enough to be a carrying tool (in my opinion), he has been statistically clutch in each of the last two seasons. In 2016 and 2017, he has a wRC+ of 45 and 60, respectively, in low leverage situations. In high leverage situations, he has had a wRC+ of 134 and 110. This is already a big swing, but it is even more impressive when you consider that the average player hits worse in high leverage situations than low ones (probably having to do with dominant relievers for high leverage at bats. So, all that being said, any comment on clutchness as a skill, are Swanson and others like him more valuable than the statistics would otherwise show." Stat Blast * Jeff details several statistics that show how Citi Field has reduced run scoring, lowered BABIP, and somehow suppressed exit velocity. * Going back to 2012 Citi Field has reduced run scoring by 14% compared to league averages. * Citi Field has reduced BABIP by 8%. * During the last three years Citi Field has had the greatest or second greatest suppression of exit velocity. Notes * The Eugene Emeralds finished the Northwest League regular season with a record of 31-45, the worst in the league. * Jeff, on how one might hide in a MLB stadium, "I don't know how many more times on the podcast I have to say I'm not encouraging murder". * Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds have both had seasons where they had more strikeouts than their batting average. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1269: Best in the Business * Eugene Emeralds walk-off balk video * Javier Baez's Other Secret Skill by Craig Edwards * Why All Third-Base Coaches Should Be Fired by Russell Carleton * There's Definitely Something Strange About Citi Field by Jeff Sullivan * Who Would Be the Home-Run Leader in Space? by Carson Cistulli * Willians Astudillo & Giancarlo Stanton video * Willians Astudillo baserunning video Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes